The Master's Foolishness Is Sky-High (3)
The Master's Foolishness Is Sky-High (3)
Inside the nurse's office.
I ended up prostrating myself before my master in abject apology.
...It might sound sudden if I just give you the conclusion, but this was a prostration that followed a perfectly structured four-act narrative.
"We're here... Damn it, why did the school nurse have to be away at a time like this!?"
'Gone again? This is getting ridiculous.'
The beginning: we arrived at the infirmary and found no one there.
"Then I'll call emergency services—no, first aid first! Lie down here!"
"......?!!!!"
'If you put me down right now...!!!'
The development. Insisting on giving me first aid, my master laid me down on the nurse's bed.
"For internal bleeding, ugh... f-first, bandages!!"
'I-I have to cover up... my arms won't move...!!'
—Whip.
The crisis. My master mentioned something about bandages and then thrust a hand into her own chest.
I frantically tried to cover my lower body, but failed in my exhausted state.
"Pardon me! If I bind it tightly with this, it should buy time until the ambulance... arrives...?"
—Slip.
"......Huh?"
'Ah.'
The climax. The Yujindo, mid-draw, was discovered.
And then came the conclusion.
"I'm truly sorry!"
-Flop.
Japan's ultimate apology: a full prostration.
After roughly thirty seconds of awkward silence, it was the first thing I did the moment strength returned to my body.
Of course, that didn't mean I could gather up water already spilled.
'Even as innocent as my master was... she had noticed, right? That I had drawn my sword?'
At this point, my master was genuinely innocent in mind, body, and spirit, with no knowledge of such things.
Normally, I might have passed it off as a fold in my clothes, but...
The abstinence I'd been enduring for over two weeks. The hot-bloodedness unique to a twenty-year-old. Nosebleed-inducing beauty.
These three combined, and I had practically drawn my blade at full salute, hadn't I.
Worse, my gym clothes made it immediately obvious.
No matter how innocent she was, there was no way she could mistake it.
Even my master must have recognized it at a glance.
So, my master, who had learned of my sword-drawing?
'She might lose it and draw a real katana!'
Someone had tried to help me, and I had gotten aroused by it?
Ah, so the man she took in as her disciple turned out to be nothing but a monkey.
Pervert. Die.
It was painfully clear that she would react this way.
I wasn't joking; I genuinely could have died by my master's hand.
'Should I argue that killing me would cause a diplomatic incident? No, that'd only pour oil on the fire!'
I desperately worked my still-dizzy brain.
How could I calm my master's fury?
How could I make sure it ended with her only beating me half to death?
The answer I arrived at after much thought was...
a head-on breakthrough.
'Let's just be honest!!'
"You were so beautiful that I lost control before I knew it! I'm truly sorry! Please spare me!"
—Press. Press.
I apologized with my forehead pressed firmly to the ground.
I poured two hundred percent sincerity into begging her to spare me and insisting I couldn't help it.
To my sincerity, my master's response...
-Prostrate.
"N-no, it is not your fault!! Rather, I am the one who is sorry!!"
"......Huh?"
She responded with a mutual prostration.
"I let my feelings get ahead of me and even sexually harassed someone so much younger! I'm sorry!"
'Huh?'
"B-but I did not look closely, so don't worry! I-I-I did not use any mana at all...! I swear!"
Unlike me, my master maintained perfect prostration form while babbling frantically.
I found myself impressed twice over: once by a native's dogeza, and again by my master's character.
Wow. She was apologizing to me instead?
Any other woman would have slapped me and immediately reported me to the police.
As expected of my master. Her character truly befitted the title Sword Saint.
'This was why I'd fallen for her—even though I already had Sia and Alice in the First Round.'
"No, I'm the one at fault! You were worried about me, and I reacted inappropriately. I'm sorry."
"N-no... You needn't apologize..."
-Muttering.
"I even used X-Ray Vision on a boy like this...."
She continued muttering something in Japanese, but...
it was probably nothing important.
My master and I remained bowed to each other, locked in an apology battle.
-Burst open!
"Yujin! I saw Aika carrying you earlier. What happened...? Huh?"
"...What is going on here, Yujin?"
To my wives, the scene must have been utterly incomprehensible.
* * *
A moment later.
-Staring intently.
"Haa... There really isn't any internal bleeding. I thought I had injured you, and I was so..."
My master, who had been flustered all this time, finally relaxed only after staring fixedly at my stomach.
She'd apparently thought my internal organs had been damaged by her kick, or something of the sort.
Beside us, Sia glared at my master.
It was because she'd been told the entire story, excluding my sword-drawing.
"Aika Ninomiya, the top-ranked S-rank. I understand why you came to Korea, but... you kicked him?"
"Well, there was a bit of a misunderstanding... Truly, I have no words...."
"A misunderstanding? Japan tried to kill Korea's next S-rank, and you call it a misunderstanding? Are you trying to start a war with the Cheonhwa Clan—with Korea!?"
"That was not my intention... I'm sorry..."
Thanks to that, my master's voice only shrank smaller and smaller.
It was hard to believe she was the world's top-ranked S-rank.
Alice, meanwhile, was too busy fussing over me in concern.
"Are you really all right, Yujin? Should I call an ambulance after all?"
"I told you, I'm fine. You know I'm sturdy."
"Even so, the top-ranked S-rank kicked you. You could still be hurt."
"She held back. Right, Mas— Ahem. Ms. Ninomiya?"
"She isn't a doctor. We should have you properly examined instead..."
Her eyes brimmed with genuine fear that something might have happened to me.
...To be worrying about me like this when I'm just a pine-needle comrade.
As expected of Alice. A complete angel. I loved her.
I grinned and opened my mouth.
"I said I'm fine. Isn't that right, Mas— Ms. Ninomiya?"
"Y-yes. I stake my name on it. At the very least, I saw no bleeding in any of his organs."
I said it to rescue my master from Sia's pressure.
My master seized on the opening with visible relief.
Her explanation followed as a bonus.
"You see, I happen to be capable of X-Ray Vision...."
Her explanation was simple.
Aika Ninomiya—the Sword Saint.
She herself could do anything when it came to the sword.
Reading an opponent's movements from the motion of their muscles was only one facet of that ability.
By focusing mana into her eyes, she could see each individual muscle fiber as though looking through the body.
That was how she always anticipated her opponents' movements in battle.
Anyway. My master's explanation was that she had examined my stomach with that X-ray vision but saw no bleeding at all.
"There is no injury, so you can relax..."
"———Wait. Can you see through clothes too?"
"Come on, Alice. Who would use an ability like that for..."
"N-no! I absolutely did not use it for anything like that!"
Her outrage at Alice's sudden insinuation was a bonus.
It did seem like she was flustered to a somewhat excessive degree, but...
she took immense pride in the sword.
Dismissing her ability as one optimized for voyeurism would be enough to make her angry. Yep.
—Stare.
"Hmm."
"It wasn't a lie... It really wasn't..."
"Alice. She's troubled by this. That's enough, stop it."
Alice still looked suspicious, so I hurriedly intervened.
My master was only tolerating it because she'd kicked me.
There was no way the top-ranked S-rank would normally sit through such an outrageous accusation in silence.
"Th-thank you for believing me..."
"What's there to believe? It's only natural."
"......."
"Anyway. Going back to talking about my technique."
I dragged the wildly derailed conversation back on track.
We returned to the real reason my master had sought me out:
the origin of my Jaha Sword Art.
'It would be best to reveal the regression and tell the truth, but... someone seemed to have forbidden that.'
I couldn't explain everything honestly.
The one who possessed me, and then made me regress.
—an entity I suspected was a god—had strictly forbidden it.
If that bastard was merely playing with me, I'd have to resist with everything I had, but...
My gut feeling was that they weren't a bad sort. They were benevolent enough to make me think, if I had a mother, she might have been like this.
There seemed little benefit in forcing out the truth about my regression against its will.
So I answered confidently.
"My sword art, the Jaha Sword Art... was taught to me by my wife."
"...Your wife!?"
"Not in this world, of course. In a dream."
It was a lie infinitely close to the truth.
I claimed that the wife who appeared in my dream had taught me swordsmanship.
...A dream and the First Round were equally impossible to prove, after all.
Explaining it that way did not make it a complete lie.
"Does that make any sense? Even if you learned it in a dream, there is no way you could use it in reality."
"My Innate Talent is mental-type, remember? And it's EX-grade."
"Ah."
Sia was skeptical at first, but was convinced right away once I threw up my EX-rank shield.
My master had accumulated so many impossible achievements that I benefited from the same 'well, he is EX-grade' treatment.
Meanwhile, Alice looked at me with a curious expression.
"...Your wife? What did she look like?"
"Huh?"
"If she appeared as Yujin's wife in his dream, she was probably his ideal type."
"......!!!!"
I'd assumed no one would care about my ideal type at a time like this.
But it seemed she was just asking in passing since the topic had come up.
I quickly hedged.
"I-I'm not sure. It was a dream, so the memory is hazy. I think... maybe she had a large chest..."
"———Haaah?"
"Eep."
This time, Sia's eyes narrowed.
She probably had no interest in my ideal type, but mentioning breast size had struck a nerve.
I immediately began evasive maneuvers.
"O-or maybe it was smaller... Not small, exactly, but not overwhelming either. Just the perfect amount?"
"H-hmm. You remember that dream awfully well. Pervert."
"......."
The murderous intent in Sia's eyes subsided.
The Second-Round Hypnosis Breeding Guy barely survived another crisis.
Having overcome a life-or-death crisis, my eyes finally turned to my master.
-Muttering.
"A wife...? Then... no, um...? That goes inside...?"
"......?"
'Did she suddenly need the bathroom?'
She merely fidgeted with the innocent hem of her clothes.
I wondered why.